Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 November 1892 — Origin of the Liberty Cap. [ARTICLE]

Origin of the Liberty Cap.

When the Romans manumitted a slave his head was adorned with a small red cloth cap. As soon as this was done he was known as a libertinus or freedman, and his name was registered among others of the city’s “tribes.” In the year 263, when Saturninus invaded the capital, says the New Orleans Picayune, he hoisted a cap on the point of his spear, to indicate that all slaves who rallied around this standard should be free. This was the origin of the liberty cap, still used in art ns a symbol.